The award was established to honour the memory of Ruth Spencer, who, until her death in 1974 at a very early age, was a senior audiology technician at the University of Southampton.

Karen is the managing director of hearing care specialists, The Hearing Care Centre, and said she was “taken aback” when she heard the announcement.

“I was shocked and amazed all at the same time. It is a great honour to win this award, which many other greats in the audiology profession have also won.”

“I trained as a hearing aid audiologist and set up on my own in 1998 after realising there was a gap in the market for what I call holistic, local hearing care” says Karen. “I didn’t want to be a hearing aid saleswoman, I wanted to offer complete hearing care,” she says.

Although very happy to win the award, Karen said that the most important thing was that her patients are happy, “For me the rewards come when one of those patients tells me how much better they can hear now they have hearing aids; how wonderful it was for them to hear the birds sing for the first time for years or to be able to communicate more effectively with their grandchildren.”

The Hearing Care Centre, which is currently celebrating its 10th year in business, is the biggest hearing care service provider in Suffolk, with 12 centres located across the county.

Karen and the Company are no strangers to accolades: she was voted High Flyer of the Year in last year’s enterprising women awards, was voted East of England entrepreneur of the year in the Chamber of Commerce awards in the same year having previously won the national title in 2005. Her company was Small Business of the Year in the East Anglian awards in 2007 and took the national prize for Workforce and Skills Development in the Chamber awards in 2006.

The Ruth Spencer special award, will be presented to Karen at the BSA’s annual conference dinner on 10th September in London.